Malcolm and Chavarria materialized from the black clad army. We spotted Malcolm first of course and I could sense him, connected through the shield. Corinne would be proud because he was buttoned up tighter than a virgin’s nightgown on her wedding night.
Chavarria shouldered the uniform in front of me to the side and Malcolm grabbed my elbow as they announced in unison, “We’re leaving.” Both men smirked.
I quipped, “Pinch, poke, you owe each other a coke!”
Malcolm gave me a sideways warning glance as daylight threw shadows under his eyes and reflected sunlight on his blue-black cheeks. His Adam’s apple bobbed on his thick neck as he swallowed his amusement.
Cooper had separated Mez and was interrogating him by the passenger door of a Tahoe two units over. I’d stuck with Chavarria’s requested meeting as our reason for being at the CIS and every question after that had been answered with, “I’m not at liberty to say.”
The uniform who’d been attempting to monotone me to death gained some animation when he realized I was going to escape. He was older, maybe around fifty or so, but most of his hair was still dark brown. A streak of pure white ran on each side from his temples, and his skin was a warm olive quickly gaining some tomato red.
“I’m not done questioning this witness, Chavarria!”
A deadpan, snake-eyed gaze preceded Marco’s response. “Yes, you are.”
I craned my neck backward as Malcolm hustled toward the rear of the white painted cinderblock restaurant. Mez was being extricated from Cooper by Officer Walters and the stocky blond stood red-faced and trembling in anger. He looked ready to fight. Instead, he kicked the thick tread of the Tahoe’s tire and swore without imagination.
Silver was nearby and the direction we were moving took me closer. She’d been questioned out of my line of sight by the police and they’d approached her with more consideration since she’d been trying to help with Carrie’s wound. I could sense James too, and he was close.
A gleaming white conversion van from the enclave was parked at an angle with the engine rumbling. The side panel door was open and Tim had his arms wrapped around the headrest of the driver’s seat. A cigarette hung out of the corner of his mouth with delicate gray-white ash defying gravity to stay attached to the burning end. Tim’s one-eyed squint wasn’t from the rising stream of smoke; I’d guess he was pissed about The Beast. The grease stains under his fingernails stood out against the light gray vinyl of the seatback.
Before he could vent his spleen at me I offered up, “I think I have a candidate for you to train, Tim. I haven’t asked her yet though. Y’all seem like a good fit.”
He grunted around the speckled filter gripped in his lined lips and turned to face the wheel. One arm hung out the window as he flicked his cigarette out of sight to keep the ash from blowing back into the interior.
I put a foot up on the running board with a hand braced on the van and almost swallowed my tongue when I realized we had unexpected company. My eyes found Silver’s in the first row of passenger seats. She sat with her back against the window and one leg curled under her butt with the other on the floorboard. James was in much the same position in the next row. They both looked grim, with flat lips and Charlie Brown eyebrows.
James bent his fingers at me in welcome as I finished my forward lurch into the van. I left the spot next to Silver vacant because I knew it was saved for Mez and knelt facing the rear of the van beside James’ bent knee. My elbows pushed into the flat seat back as I rested my jaw in both hands. “Fancy meeting you two-faced traitors here. What a day, huh? Incidentally, I thought you guys were long gone to Arizona. I’d guess the Council would love to know why you’re all cozy with the leader of the Warp Faction.”
Four sets of dark eyes zeroed in on me, but it was only possible for me to concentrate on one at a time. I chose Ramon.
He squirmed next to his nephew Doe, folding his cap in his lap and then lifted his chin. “We were attempting to make peace, if possible. That man was not the leader of the Warp Faction; he was an envoy from this area named Julius Alexander. You are mistaken.”
I laughed in a loud throaty burst of sound that hit the close ceiling and filled the warm interior with dark amusement. “You don’t know shit from Shinola. That was the Soul Eater, Ramon. I’d recognize him anywhere in that body because he tortured me with it. The name he gave is an alias, you dumbasses. ‘Julius’ for Julius Caesar and ‘Alexander’ for Alexander the Great. I’m sure he was alive when they were and the crazy asshole finds it amusing.”
Manuel Reno twisted his age lined lips in a sneer, exposing coffee stained front teeth and brown gums. “There is no such thing as the Soul Eater! You reveal your own madness saying such things.”
Silver cackled and snorted but failed to add to the conversation because Mez showed up to distract her. His tall frame collapsed nearly in half to fit inside and he bumped his head twice before he got settled next to my sister. I was really going to have to break him of his all black clothing theme because he looked like a waiter, a bouncer or a mortician. The whites of his fake eyes grew larger as he turned to take in the drama.
Malcolm jerked his chin in thanks at Walters who walked backward for a moment and shook his head before he rejoined the investigation at the front of the building. Malcolm opened the front passenger door, but before he could get in someone yelled his last name.
“Moore! You’re suspended and you shouldn’t be here. Explain!”
A saturnine, reed thin Hispanic man in a tan State Trooper’s uniform approached with short determined steps on the patched tar of the lot. His waistline was trim and his black belt made it look even smaller. The man I would guess to be his boss, Hernandez, only came up to Malcolm’s underarm, and that was being generous. The straw hat perched on the back of his head added a couple inches so my estimate could have been off. He was still taller than me at any rate.
The side panel door was open and the hot wind did little to keep the air fresh. It was worse in the last two passenger rows where the Renos, Doe and Ramon, sat because no new air circulated to them at all. A small, spiteful part of me hoped they passed out from heat stroke.
Malcolm’s features closed down into a polite emotionless façade. “I’m not here in an official capacity. These people are family, and I’m taking them home. They’ve had a trying day.”
Chavarria was standing in front of the panel door. I could only see the back of his closely cropped head through two overlapped layers of glass.
Hernandez put both hands on his belt now and leaned back on the heels of his cowboy boots. The sides of the stretched leather were rolling over the sole. Creases ran in a ‘y’ pattern on the front of his pants and sweat had plastered the black sideburns of his school boy haircut to his skin. Rivulets of perspiration soaked his collar making the tan turn to a wet sand color.
His excessive body sweat made me envision suspects in the hot seat, not a man in charge. If he struck me as weak, then what did the other State Troopers think of Hernandez? This couldn’t be good for morale. I caught Silver’s look of disgust in his direction. Good, it wasn’t just me.
“If you’re in uniform it’s assumed you’re acting in an official capacity. Leave now, Moore, and I don’t want to see your face until we call you in.”
The tendons and veins on the top of Malcolm’s hands flexed as he stretched his fingers wide by the blue stripe running down the outside of his trouser leg. He got in the van without saying anything to his overbearing boss.
It would have ended there, but Hernandez yanked off his hat and leaned his head through the open window. Whatever he said was too low for any of us to hear but the next thing I knew Malcolm jerked forward in his seat and head butted Hernandez who folded like a bad poker hand to the pebbled asphalt.
Chavarria strolled over, grabbed Hernandez under his arms and dragged his limp body a safe distance from the vehicle. He propped him up against the side of the building in the shade and placed his straw hat over the front
of his face as if he were snatching an impromptu siesta. Marco even took the time to cross Hernandez’s ankles and grab an empty beer bottle some drunk had thrown aside, placing it in his hands as if he’d passed out from one too many.
When Marco climbed in the side and dragged the paneled door shut, he settled next to me in silence. Silver was still turned in her seat and her eyes were so concentrated on Chavarria, if they’d been lasers his head would have been a charred skull.
I scooted closer to James and he put both legs on the floorboard to give me more room. The Agent edged his shoulders into mine and dug around in his front pocket until he extracted his phone. He hit some buttons and selected a name from a list in his contacts. When he saw me visually snooping he put the phone to his ear and scowled. I heard the ring and then a faint female voice on the other side.
“Yeah it’s me. Go behind the CIS and you’ll get a different story than the one in the front. Don’t say a source called it in; just say you were checking out the scene on your own or my tips stop coming.”
He ended the call.
Malcolm nudged Tim in the arm. “Let’s go, man.”
The van pulled into the side street from the wide alley and turned right, away from the swarm of police. Tim clucked at the ruin of The Beast, and I shrank down in my seat when he glared at me in the rearview mirror.
James asked the question we all wanted an answer to. “Malcolm, what the hell was that?”
Stone-faced, Chavarria slapped his phone on his palm and then began to flip it back to front, over and over in one hand.
Malcolm yelled from the front without turning around, “Nunya. The only thing I’ve got to say is—don’t start none, won’t be none.”
Silver rested her head against the window and from the motion of her body it looked like Mez had her legs in his lap. She smiled a soft appreciative smile at the back of Malcolm’s bald head. “Remind me never to piss you off, Big Man.”
He tilted the nape of his neck against the headrest and aimed well dark eyes at our guests in the back. “That’s always a good rule to follow.”
Chapter Twenty: In the Dark There is More Light
We made it back to the enclave in one piece. Swindell was still at the gate and she waved us through but spoke into a black hand-unit as the gate rolled shut behind us. When we parked the van in an empty slot I noticed Malcolm’s Crown Victoria was missing.
“How did you and Tim get to us so fast at the CIS?”
Malcolm shrugged his massive shoulders. “The hearing didn’t go my way. I’m suspended indefinitely without pay and my unit got confiscated until the appeal. I don’t have a piece any more either. There was a whole lot of political bullshit going on with Hernandez. He’s done it before with other Troopers he thought of as a threat. He’s gone too far this time. Anyway, Tim was on his way to pick me up when Control called to tell us about y’all’s mess.”
Tim shifted to the side in the driver’s seat and ripped a fart that broke the sound barrier. The trapped heat in the cab took no time delivering the thick cloud of stench. Mez and Silver ‘ported out together and my twin opened the slide panel door from the outside.
I pushed on Chavarria’s bicep and he got a move on. He was too slow for my taste so I thinned my shield and James’ for direct contact and ‘ported us to the empty slot directly in front of the van’s hood. James didn’t even complain about me not giving him a heads up for the bend. Malcolm left the front passenger door open and waved his arms to clear the air.
Tim was about two feet away and walking slowly toward the sidewalk. From the back I could see how much weight he’d lost—his pants hung loose from his waist. He needed company that could cook in that big house.
“Hey, Pepe Le Pew, hold up a minute!”
Tim spun on one heel and bent his head over his cupped hand as he lit another cigarette. “Yeah what?”
My pupils shrank to nonexistence to avoid the blaring light of the suddenly too bright sun. “Hell Martinez. She’s got a brother, Enrique, who might be interested too. Hell’s at the Security Office working the front desk. Go ask her nice and keep a cork in your anus while you’re in there.”
He spit on the hot tar and flicked his smoke on the wind. “Ain’t promising anything I can’t deliver, Rainbow Bright.” A twinkle lit his eye and his walk had a little bounce in the knees as he ambled on his way again.
I didn’t much care for his nickname choice since it put me in mind of Elder Nyt. The muscles in my joints felt locked as I wrestled with the inner memory of her betrayal and arrogance on Axsa. Fai’s dead, hematite eyes swam up to judge me for snapping her neck, and I could almost hear the slithering trees in the wog field where we’d fought. James nudged me with an elbow, breaking me out of my stupor, and his pallor wasn’t green when I faced him full-on. Maybe he was finally adjusted to teleportation. It took him long enough.
He pointed at Manuel as he slowly made his way out of the van with Doe’s assistance from the blacktop and murmured sideways from thinned lips, “I guess we can stash them in the guest house I mentioned and then contact the Council from there. They don’t need time alone to chat between themselves in the Web or in person.”
My eyes must have betrayed me to James as I realized they could have feigned sleep in the van ride and been scheming the whole way to the enclave or contacting their Council connections. Why hadn’t I thought of that, dammit?
He threw an arm around my neck and leaned close to my shielded earlobe. “Don’t worry so much, Cass. I’m security, you aren’t. I’ve got us covered. Malcolm and Chavarria already played scary at my request and threatened to drug them or knock them out cold if they misbehaved. I guess that’s what part of the show with Hernandez was about—that and Malcolm’s not a man anyone should piss off. When his fuse finally lights it’s a done deal of dead or wish you were dead.”
I reached where no one could see, thinned his shield in a desirable spot and patted my appreciation as I put my nose to his. “I knew there was a reason I should keep you around besides sex.”
James chuckled from deep in his chest and the world melted away to my reflection in his eyes as things low in my belly curled and tightened with anticipation.
He traced the line of my eyebrow over my right eye with his finger. “Correction, love, really good sex. The mind blowing kind that makes you shiver when you even think of the things I’ve done to you and could still do. Any…time…I…want, and you’ll beg.”
I ducked from under his arm and bent it completely behind his back at an angle that would’ve made his knees buckle had I been serious. “Who’s begging now, Romeo?”
Mez had his fists on his waist and his legs spread like a soot covered Mr. Clean. His light field disguise was gone, exposing spiked teeth. “Sustor Cor, is it your Earth custom to physically spar before mating or are you attempting to literally break your lover’s appendage? Neither seems conducive to copulation.”
Silver leaned around Mez’s chest and stared at a dumbstruck Doe, Ramon and the two Renos, younger and older. “This isn’t the time for horsing around, Cass.” She paused and laid the back of her hand on her forehead. “Oh my God, that actually came out of my mouth…am I running a fever?”
James twisted out of my grasp and reversed the hold to his advantage with a hand around my wrist and pulled me to his chest to buss my cheek then spin me away with an arm over my head. It was hard not to be dizzy and my face was consumed with happiness as my front teeth pushed my bottom lip out and my top lip rose so high it exposed my gums.
Temporary crow’s feet made tiny trenches at the outside of James’ eyes and his cheeks fattened like rising bread with the widening of his lips. “Now we’re done horsing around, Silver.” His levity disappeared like an internal switch had been flipped as James gave his attention to the visitors from Arizona. “Gentlemen, please follow me and I’ll escort you to your temporary accommodations so we can discuss matters more comfortably.”
Malcolm stood behind the four men with his arm
s spread in a way that reminded me of Cooper when he’d herded Mez and me away from an injured Carrie. The uniforms were different—the Texas tan of Malcolm’s thick short sleeve pocketed button down made his blue-black skin look even darker in the sun. It brought to mind beautiful black pearls. If I ever said something that girly out loud he’d probably make me spar with him as payback. My mind never could pass up noticing the little moments of visual splendor in life though.
I caught Silver glancing away from Malcolm and we shared a smile at the secret small joy. If she had been inside me, where she belonged, our conversation would have been more of a swapping of thoughts. Separate as we were, this zing of distant connection would have to suffice.
Chavarria stared at Mez with such intensity that I thought his brain might leak out of his ears. Goose bumps trailed up his neck and across his scalp. The tiny chicken skin dots looked out of place on such a sunny day. Maybe my enhanced vision just made them more noticeable.
Mez picked imaginary food from between his two front teeth, then yawned, exposing every serrated white edge in his gaping mouth. It brought to mind the aggressive mannerisms of gorillas in the Congo. His display was confirmed as intentional when Mez flicked his nictitating lenses four or five times as if batting his eyes in the Axsian version of coquettishness.
Chavarria stumble stepped then regained his equilibrium. “Why are you here on Earth?”
Silver looped a thin casual arm around Mez’s tapered waist and leaned the back of her white hair on his black shirt against the bulge of his shoulder muscle. “Agent Mez Gebregdan of the Axsian Guild of Discovery, who is also authorized by the Galactic Alliance of Sentient Planets, is here to protect us from interlopers from outer space. Smuggling, criminals and general all-around assholes aren’t unique to humanity, Marco Polo. Nature abhors a vacuum and if there’s profit to be had of whatever stripe then you can bet sentient beings will capitalize on it with a vengeance. Plus, we’re backwater babies still fighting amongst ourselves without a global government so they’re observing us while we grow out of pampers.” She batted her long white lashes at Mez. “Does that about sum it up, honey?”
PHOENIX (The Weaver Series Book 4) Page 17
